Скачать или смотреть W.S. Holland Band - Million Dollar Memories

W.S. Holland Band - Million Dollar Memories (2012)

Musicians :

W.S. Holland , drums and recitation
Ron Haney , guitar and vocals
Jim Reece , bass and vocals
Alan "Gator" Wheeler , keyboards


You could say W.S. "Fluke" Holland was there the night rock 'n' roll was born.

Holland, who manned the drums during the famed 1956 recording session with Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash

"There were no big stars there, not yet anyway," Holland said in a phone interview from his Jackson, Tenn., home. "It was years before that night became famous."

Holland, just 21 at the time, was working as an air conditioner installer for $35 a week in Jackson. Perkins and his brothers were pals of his, and Holland liked to go hear them play.

"I'd go beat on the side of the upright bass — we called it the big dog bass — keeping time."

When iconic record producer and founder of Sun Studio/Sun Records Sam Phillips asked Perkins and his band to come to the studio and perform, Holland was asked to pitch in.

"I had never played drums before, and Carl asked me to borrow a drum set and come play with them," the 76-year-old said.

Phillips was impressed, even though Holland improvised heavily and set up the drum kit backward (he set up his "high hat" on the right instead of the left and continues to set it up that way to this day).

Phillips offered Perkins a recording contract and, in 1955, the group had a hit with "Blue Suede Shoes."

His own history as rock's pioneering drummer could merit a Broadway musical.
After years of working with Perkins, Holland decided to retire his drums after marrying Joyce in 1960 and settling down.

The only problem was, his buddy Johnny Cash needed a drummer for two weeks until he could find another one.

Holland would go on to be Cash's one and only drummer, playing drums on storied recordings such as "Ring of Fire," "Folsom Prison Blues," and "Walk the Line" (Holland is portrayed in the 2005 Oscar-nominated film of the same name.)

"Somehow," he chuckles, "two weeks turned into 40 years."